04-20-2003, 01:00 AM
|
|
Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 3,060
|
|
An Internet Music Plan I Can Live With
http://www.listen.com/roadrunner/
I know we've talked about music digital rights management a lot and we've discussed the ethics of using services like Napster, Morpheus and Kazaa ad nauseum, but here's a new wrinkle. To me, the temptation to download unlicensed music always came down to the fact that existing schemes for buying music online suffer from one or more major shortcomings:
� The selection of artists and tunes stinks.
� I have to buy a whole CD just to get a couple of tunes I like.
� Purchased tunes are locked and cannot be copied.
Well, today, I discovered the Rhapsody service from my high speed ISP, RoadRunner. If you've heard of this already, forgive me, but this program comes the closest of any plan I've seen yet to overcoming these limitations. It might even make a more honest person out of me...
I've always said that I'd willingly pay up to $1.50 per tune if I could buy an entire CD filled only with songs that I like. And that's pretty close to what Rhapsody makes possible. Here's basically how it works...
� First, you have to buy a subscription to the service, which is $9.95 per month. I'm not really nuts about this part, but if I plan to create at least a few CDs a month, it's worth the subcription price to me. For this fee, you get unlimited listening access to over 300,000 tracks from over 10,000 artists, including everybody from Eminem to U2 to ZZ Top.
� Second, you build playlists of music by searching the databases by artist, track, album or composer. This part is trickier than it sounds, though, because the incredible selection makes it hard to whittle down the list to something manageable.
� Third, you burn a CD with your playlist selections. This step costs $0.95 per track. The process is fast and easy, and you can even then rip the songs to MP3 format for listening on a Pocket PC.
With this program, I was able to create a custom CD of hard-to-find tunes in just a few minutes. I don't have any problem paying for each song, either, because it's a lot better than buying a whole slew of CDs just to get the 11 songs I really wanted.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the songs I was so eager to find included such gems as:
China Grove
Black Water
Steamer Lane Breakdown
Listen To The Music
...and 7 more.
[Two brownie points to the first person who knows what band recorded all these songs...]
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 01:06 AM
|
|
Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 381
|
|
in case you're wondering, Apple will be rolling out their own music download service.
Apperantly they us the ACC (AAC?) format. read the story @ www.macrumors.com
I know it's a "rumor", but it's almost definitive in the mac community.
I'm not sure how the digital rights will work out though. Apperantly it's supposed to cost like 99cents per song...
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 01:10 AM
|
|
Ponderer
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 89
|
|
The Doobie Brothers? :roll:
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 01:13 AM
|
|
5000+ Posts? I Should OWN This Site!
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 5,616
|
|
The BeeGees (sp/punctuation/capitalization?)?
__________________
iPhone 4! ☠☠☠ Mid-2010 15" MacBook Pro! ☠☠☠ Gateway LT2102h! ☠☠☠ Dell XPS M1210!
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 02:33 AM
|
|
Pupil
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 20
|
|
An Internet Music Plan I Can Live With
"Tis The Doobie Brothers.
This plan could work for me as well. $9.95 for a month is a bit steep, but $0.95 per track is reasonable. If their collection is strong it might swing me.
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 02:36 AM
|
|
Ponderer
Join Date: Nov 2002
Posts: 89
|
|
Why didn't you just get a Doobie Brothers CD? It woulda been cheaper and you could have got "Long Train Running" and "Taking it to the streets" in there too.
I know I'd be somewhat uneasy with paying $9.95 and THEN another 12-15 bucks for a CD. That monthly fee doesn't ever pay for itself!
I think the best (legal) music delivery medium I've seen so far is a plain old department store... places like Future Shop buy in large enough quantities to make the $12.99 CDN CD a commonplace thing. Of course, you're not going to find more obscure stuff there (I want more Eric Johnson! Sonny Boy Williamson! Louis Armstrong! Stephane Grappelli!).
I think the commercial possibilities of Internet music delivery are still completely untapped.
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 02:38 AM
|
|
Ponderer
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 54
|
|
What about the fine print? :?: My ISP, Earthlink, also has a digital music program. What they don't initially tell you is that when you download the song, you download some sort of digital rights - if you cancel your subscription, you cancel the rights, and the song will not play. :evil:
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 02:41 AM
|
|
Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by bikeman
What about the fine print? :?: My ISP, Earthlink, also has a digital music program. What they don't initially tell you is that when you download the song, you download some sort of digital rights - if you cancel your subscription, you cancel the rights, and the song will not play. :evil:
|
Ouch....that's nasty and should almost be illegal - tying you into their service "for life"....ugly! :2gunfire:
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 03:19 AM
|
|
Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 382
|
|
I still vouch for http://www.emusic.com
I was exposed to lots of new artists in genres that I like, for $15 a month. It was great, and I had full control of the tracks after I bought them - sadly it was only 128 K bit stream, but I honestly can't tell the difference.
I really really liked the service, and I found so many new artists as well as some of my old favorites.
|
| |
|
|
|
04-20-2003, 03:26 AM
|
|
Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 556
|
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
Ouch....that's nasty and should almost be illegal :
|
Hmm. Stealing music IS illegal, though. I guess I'm an old fuddy duddy but comments like "almost enough to make me honest" really make me sick. Suddenly theft is acceptable. Young people today, I don't know.
If a CD (or "LP" as it was known in my day - ask your parents) was too expensive for me, I didn't buy it. I didn't think I had a right to it, or shoplift it and justify it to myself by saying the record companies were trying to rip me off.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Linear Mode
